


cry wolf

by scarletite



Category: Carmilla (Web Series), Carmilla - All Media Types
Genre: F/F, Werewolf!Laura, au in which the series never happened, but laura and carm are still roommates at silas, now with more angst, trying to keep each other oblivious to their 'supernatural' natures, vampire!Carmilla
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-06-26
Updated: 2017-08-03
Packaged: 2018-11-18 20:00:22
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 5
Words: 16,235
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11297808
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/scarletite/pseuds/scarletite
Summary: When Laura Hollis had moved from Canada, she’d chosen Silas University for a reason: not just for the fresh air, the remote location, or the excellent journalism programme (all of which she’d cited as the reasons to her father).The reason she’d chosen Silas was simple: they acceptedanyone.Anyone, their Charter defined, included students afflicted with: “curses, maladies or birth rights of the supernatural variety."Because, you see, Laura has a secret.A big, furry, lose-her-mind-and-lock-herself-up-once-a-month secret.





	1. aconitum

**Author's Note:**

> This is a season 1 alternate universe, to some extent: Carmilla's still a vampire in this, her mother is still dean (but she's just a regular, really old, morally bankrupt vampire), and Silas is still _Silas_. But there's no disappearing girls or anglerfish gods.

When Laura Hollis had moved from Canada, she’d chosen Silas University for a reason: not just for the fresh air, the remote location, or the excellent journalism programme (all of which she’d cited as the reasons to her father).

The reason she’d chosen Silas was simple: they accepted _anyone_.

Anyone, their Charter defined, included students afflicted with: “curses, maladies or birth rights of the supernatural variety."

Of course, there was an approval process involved when supernaturally-leaning students decided to make Silas their new place of study. All sorts of blood-tests, practical exams, and demonstrations, that had to be “submitted to in order to undertake an education at Silas University.”

However, with all of her aspiring journalistic investigatory powers, Laura had discovered a prominent loophole in Silas’ admission rules—namely, ‘they don’t know if you don’t tell’ is totally a legitimate method of attending, and, once you’re enrolled, the only way to remove a student is through “voluntary withdrawal, academic failure, or upon the student’s expiry.”

It was reassuring—terrifying, because who had ‘expiry’ clauses in their Charter?—but reassuring.

Because, you see, Laura has a secret.

A big, furry, lose-her-mind-and-lock-herself-up-once-a-month secret. 

* * *

In the year that Laura has been a werewolf—a little too much beer at a high school party, a badly-timed midnight walk, and an unfortunate bite later—she’s come to adjust.

Werewolf life isn’t easy, or simple, but it’s her life now.

(Although, really, she’s still not up on the terminology. Werewolf never seems right. Werewolf usually implies the only-shifts-during-the-full-moon and the hairy-man-beast type, which isn’t true. She can shift whenever, and she’s less beast-man and more overgrown-timber-wolf.)

Still, she’s developed a system to keep her secret safe. Or, at least, to keep her wolf-self from chowing down on any of her classmates in a fit rage.

  1. Don't shift if you’re angry (that’s a recipe for one tasty, rare, human steak).
  2. Try to keep a level head (upset a wolf, you get the—teeth?)
  3. Don't shift back in public (the clothes exploding thing is unavoidable, unfortunately, and she’s not entirely comfortable with flashing)
  4. And, finally: always take your potion before the full moon.



“Ugh,” Laura gags, tossing the bottle away (in the recycling, because she cares about the environment). “That’s still just as gross as always. With all the crazy stuff they make, you’d think the Alchemy Club could come up with a tastier version—a little more bubblegum or candy floss, a little less freshly squeezed rat. Zero out of five stars."

Talking to the camera is therapeutic, even if there's nobody on the other side—these videos publish strictly to her private list. 

(There's no real audience for 'My Big, Weird, Werewolf Life: A Laura Hollis Biography', or at least not one that won't risk her being locked up, poked and prodded, or hunted down for her pelt—which, research has told her, are all the rage on the supernatural black market.)

"So, the full moon is upon us once again," Laura furtively declares, digging through her desk for mouthwash. "Hence the wolfsbane, _and_ the Listerine—because _ugh,_ seriously not pleasant. But that's the price you pay to not lose your mind in the moonlight, I guess."

Wolfsbane is only necessary during the full moon, when the sight of it makes her blood rush and the wolf clamber its way out—it’s the only time she can’t control it. Normally, she’s pretty good about not exploding with fur if she stubs a toe or runs out of cookies. But the full moon, it turns her instincts up a thousand notches.

With the potion though, it’s all muted: like werewolf prozac. It calms the raging in her blood, leaves her calmer, mellower, almost sleepy at times; so rather than running through the forest, or chowing down on tasty freshmen, all she really wants to do is watch TV and stare at the moon.

The change is still inevitable, of course. Her evenings, from the day before the full moon to the day after, are spent on four legs. No stopping that, as far as she knows. But her days, however, she can force the change back. Sure, she's moodier, more aggressive, and overall much _meaner_  during the three-day event, but she normally blames it on "that time of the month"—hah—if anyone asks. As small a blessing as it is, at least she doesn't have to miss classes, there's only so many she can afford to skip.

Laura pauses to use the mouthwash, disappearing into the bathroom for a moment to spit it out, before settling back into her desk chair. "So it's been a few weeks since the last cycle, obviously. Sorry I haven't had a chance to update, a certain roommate has been in and out like crazy, all hours. It's been hard to steal a moment alone."

She leans closer to the camera, voice lowering. "Danny managed to cover for me for the last full moon. I told Carmilla I was staying over at the Summer House for the weekend, for a movie marathon. Which, I did. What I _didn't_ tell her was that it involved Danny locking me in her bedroom every night, and binge watching all the werewolf movies she could find—which was sweet of her, although the lore is all over the place, and I have _serious_ problems with how we're portrayed."

"Still, I'm kind of freaking out?" Laura rakes a hand through her hair. "Because the aforementioned roomate seems to have the nose of a bloodhound or something. Like, the second I came back, she was all 'ew, cupcake, you smell like dog', which, first of all: completely different species, supernaturality aside, which is offensive. Second of all, I made sure to shower before I came back. How could she tell? The weirdest part was that she smelled it from, like, across the _room._ Which, I'm no expert on normal human olfactory senses, but seems totally impossible. Definitely another tick in the 'my roommate isn't normal' category."

In the two months (and this, the second full moon) that they've been living together, Laura's come to learn a few things about her new roommate.

  1. She's a messy kleptomaniac with exceptionally bad people skills.
  2. She disappears at all hours, for no reason: mostly in the middle of the night.
  3. There's _blood_ in her milk container.
  4. There's no _way_ her roommate is normal, she smells _weird_.



(Laura's own, wolf-enhanced sense of smell, while often an inconveniece when somebody cooks a strong curry or wears strong perfume, tells her this: Carmilla's smell, beneath the perfume and _Laura's_ body wash, is _off_. She can't pin what it is, but it makes something inside her recoil.)

She hasn't had much time to investigate into the mystery that is Carmilla Karnstein, world's worst roommate and very obviously not a normal girl. But there's something weird, possibly _supernatural_ about her.

It would be comforting, if Laura wasn't terrified that some day her roommate is actually something like a succubus (she's seen enough study buddies come by to make it a viable hypothesis) or a wendigo in disguise (less plausible, but you never know). Silas is a hub of the supernatural, after all, and she probably isn't the only 'creature on campus'. 

Laura would come out and ask, of course, but there's no polite way to ask 'what are you?'. And she learned a while back, after almost getting decapitated by an angry skinwalker in the supernaturally-inclined parts of Toronto, that sometimes asking is a _terrible idea._ She's not looking to get her throat ripped out. Even with enhanced strength, longevity and healing (hello, helpful werewolf penpal in Saskatchewan for breaking down the rumors vs realities), that's not something even she can come back from. 

"I know what you're thinking: Laura, why don't you just tell her?" Laura shakes her head. It's a thought that's occured to her more than once. "And I _would_. Or, well, I'd consider it. But Carmilla doesn't exactly scream 'safe, sane, trustworthy member of society', supernatural or not. I'm not sure I can trust the girl who eats all my cookies and makes out with 'study buddies' in my bed with my deepest, darkest secret."

A moment of silence passes, Laura's teeth gnawing at her lip. "The worst part about all this is, the Summers are having a party this weekend, so Danny's is a no-go. LaFontaine's busy doing science-y things, and their room is probably more dangerous than the labs. And Perry _cannot_ know, she'd freak. So I'm kind of drawing a blank."

Danny's the only person to see her shift, and that kind of had something to do with her stumbling in on Laura mid-shift in the woods, on her second full moon. 

(She'd freaked out, first, and thrown rocks at her. But when Laura's potion and sad whines had proved effective, she'd hung out with her until the morning.)

(They'd never talked about the whole awkward-naked-shift-back the next morning, thankfully.)

LaFontaine, annoying perceptive, had taken one look at her on a full-moon-day—grumpy and growling—and offered her a laughing: "so, werewolf, huh?"

The impending, lonely full-moon is a problem she's been mulling over for days, nervous. "And I can't stay here, obviously. Carmilla's going to be here, and I don't think I can sneak the fact that I'm a four-foot wolf by undetected," Laura sighs, tapping her fingers thoughtfully against the desk for a long moment, mulling it over. "I guess there's always the woods, like my first one here. I'd have to pack a bag: definitely some clothes, some food, a blanket maybe. There isn't much to do though, there's nowhere to plug my laptop in, but—"

"Talking to yourself again, creampuff?"

Laura yelps, almost tipping herself backwards in her chair. "Carmilla! You're back!"

"Someone's jumpy," Carmilla smirks, sidling inside and dropping onto her bed. In the reflection of the camera's recording, she sees her roommate's raised eyebrow. "What's this about going off into the woods?"

Eyes wide, Laura scrambles for an excuse. "Camping! I'm—some of us are going camping on Friday. You know, enjoy the fresh air, outdoors, all that."

Carmilla tilts her head. "It's supposed to rain, cutie."

"Can't let rain put a dampen on a good adventure," Laura babbles. "Get it, _dampen?"_

The stare that meets her own is flat. "You'll get sick."

"I'll be fine, I haven't been sick in," a year, since she'd first got bit—werewolf immune systems, if nothing else, apparently kick butt, "ages."

Pulling a book from beneath her pillow— _my yellow pillow_ , Laura notes, smothering a growl _—_ Carmilla lounges backwards. "Famous last words, cutie."

The nicknames always throw her off, and this is no exception.

The growl she's swallowing back fades. "Why do you even care?"

"Do I?"

Laura glares at her through the computer monitor. "Are you always like this, or am I special?"

A moment of silence passes, and Laura almost thinks that Carmilla isn't going to answer.

But Carmilla pauses, eyes on Laura's back, and whispers, almost too soft for even Laura's enhanced-hearing to catch: "…special, right."

Laura pauses, heart racing in her chest— _oh no, she's totally on to me._

But Carmilla doesn't say anything else, just opens her book and begins reading. 

* * *

The following afternoon is the first day of the full moon.

Laura's thankful, for once, for Carmilla's proclivity towards never rising before 5 PM. It means that when she drops by their room, after long day full of classes, she doesn't have to deal with her roommate getting on her nerves. It gets a bit hairy (literally) during this time of the month.

Of course, the potion can only do so much to settle her. There's a thin layer of agitation bubbling beneath the surface, which only gets worse when she sees the _mess_ that is their dorm room—clothes everywhere, half-empty mugs, crumbs. Because Carmilla,  _whatever_ she is, has deplorable cleaning standards.

Setting her teeth, Laura kicks her way through a pile of clothes, and over to her bed.

Pulling out a spare bag, she goes about collecting all the things she'll need.

Thanks, Dad, for making sure she has a full camping kit, "just in case."

It's been a while since she's done this, three months ago. Since Danny found her in the woods, she's been spending her fur-covered evenings in the Summer house. But she thinks she remembers what to bring: food, sleeping bag, spare clothes, a flashlight.

"Still off on your crazy camping trip?"

Laura just about hits the ceiling, she jumps so high. "Carm, I—what are you doing up?"

Carmilla is sitting up in bed, hand planted beneath her chin. "Kind of hard to sleep with all the noise, sundance. It's obvious you've never had to sneak out of the house before, with a stomp like that."

"Yeah, well, it'd be a lot easier to be quiet if you'd pick up something, literally _anything_ ," Laura hisses, turning her back to her obnoxious, annoying roomate and baring her teeth at the wall. She stuffs a pillow into the top of the bag, until it's bulging. "It'd be nice to come back to a room that _isn't_ trashed, just once."

There's a rustle of movement, and suddenly Carmilla's standing behind her. 

Laura pauses, hyperaware of every inch of her body, her skin prickling.

"Someone's testy today," Carmilla hums, fingers playing softly over Laura's shoulder. "Rough day, sweetheart?"

Her breath flees her in a rush, as the fingers play over the collar of her sweatshirt. "I'm not—" her mind blanks, as soft fingers touch to her skin, thumb smoothing over her neck. "Wow, Carmilla, what are you—you're touching me? Why are you touching me?"

As if burned, Carmilla's hand pulls backwards, puts space between you. "Just trying to relax your pretty little head. Somebody's a little tense."

Without the presence at her back, Laura can finally breathe. "I'm _fine._ I just—need to finish packing."

"So, you're still going ahead with your ill-advised little trip?" Carmilla says, sitting on the edge of her bed, one leg crossing over the other. "I'm surprised that Xena is letting you go, what with the forecast."

Laura scoffs, irritation prickling her skin. "Danny doesn't have to _let_ me go anywhere. She's not my girlfriend, and I can go where I want."

"Oh, really? Color me surprised. I figured with the moon-eyes you've been making at each other," Carmilla leans back, pinning her back with a raised eyebrow, "that she'd have made her move by now. Especially with all the _time_ you've been spending together."

"There are no moon-eyes. There is an _absence_ of moon-eyes. I mean, sure, maybe there was  _something_ , but not anymore. Danny's a great friend, and I love spending time with her, but—not like that. And she gets that," Laura shakes her head, chasing away the thoughts of Danny. "But, anyway, camping! Camping is great, and I'm going to go do it. Tonight. Now."

Carmilla hums, and it's not fair that she looks so good, three minutes after waking up, when it takes Laura the better part of fifteen minutes to tame her bedhead.

"Well, have fun with your little _adventure_ ," Carmilla's gaze is piercing, and she smirks in her strange, mysterious, up-to-no-good way. 

Laura's heart races again ( _does she know? oh god, she knows!)_.

She lets out a short laugh, hair on the back of her neck raising. "I will, definitely. For sure. Camping is fun. There will be fun times. Perchance, fun will be achieved!"

Carmilla tilts her head. "You're babbling, cutie."

"Babbling? Me? Must be a Friday," Laura's laugh is awkward, high pitched. "Anyway, I'm going to go. You know, lots to set up, things to prepare. Tents, and such. You get it. So I'm just gonna—I'll go."

"Leaving so soon?" Carmilla hums.

Her heart thudding frantically in her chest, Laura snatches up her bag and practically dashes out of the room. "See you on Monday, gottago _bye_."

She feels Carmilla's eyes following her, long after she's out and around the corner.

_(She definitely knows.)_

* * *

Camping is something Laura's always done, a process she knows like the back of her hand.

Growing up, she spent her childhood camping in all manner of parks across Toronto—Elora Gorge, Bon Echo, Algonquin. Every chance they got, her parents would take her out, into the fresh air, into nature. Even after Mom died, Dad still took her out. Hiking, kayaking, stargazing; every weekend since she was a kid, she's spent outdoors. 

Naturally, setting up a tent comes easy.

"Done," Laura smiles, settling back on her heels. "Whew. And just in time."

The angle of the sun is starting to slope down, and she can already feel it. There's a quickening in her blood, a tug in her chest, a rush in her veins—primal, raw, indescribable. There's only minutes left to sunset. 

It had taken the better part of the afternoon to get away from Silas University, into the mountains and forests that surround it. To where she can be sure nobody will stumble upon her. It's safe, or as safe as it can be, out here. After the time with Danny, Laura's made sure to go _much_ farther out.

She steps into the tent, opens her bag, and begins setting up her own impromptu nest. Sleeping bag first, unzipped, to pad the bottom—she'd use an air mattress but, well, she'd accidentally popped the last one. Then her pillow, because even her wolf-form demands comfort. Then a change of clothes, set to the side.

Laura takes a quick glance outside, into the clearing she's chosen: an open meadow, with long grass and a small, winding river. Nobody, it's quiet. Just birds, and the burbling of the river. 

Taking a deep breath, Laura pulls off her clothes. Jacket first, then shirt and bra, carefully folded and tucked into her backpack. Then her boots, jeans and underwear, all following. It's not quite winter yet, but she feels the cold air rushing around her.

"Here we go," Laura hums, peeking her head out of the tent flap.

Although she can turn on her own, she doesn't.

There's something about the pause before the sun disappears, before the moon fully appears, that makes her extend the moment: like the pause, the moment of breathless silence between an exhale and an inhale. As the moments pass, she breathes deep, watches the crimson shrink into darkness on the horizon.

In the moments that follow, a few things happen in rapid succession.

The sun disappears fully, giving way to darkness.

The moon glows, bright and full, in the sky, half-hidden behind dark clouds.

Laura's eyes find the horizon, pupils shifting, blowing and contracting. 

The place high on her thigh, where she'd been bitten twelve months ago, burns.

In a ripple of fur and fangs, her body _shudders._

Laura hits the ground hard, on hands and knees, only they aren't. She tumbles out of the tent onto four legs, wobbling into the grass. The rush of blood rings loudly in her ears, louder than the river and the birds and the animal—a fox, her nose tells her—wandering through the woods nearby.

In the moonlight, the girl isn't a girl anymore.

The wolf stumbles to the river's edge, finding its feet slowly. It hunches at the water, takes in the broken, wavering reflection of itself—all brown-white fur and golden eyes, not dirty-blonde hair and brown. 

Paw slipping into the water, it bats at the image of itself; it ripples, splashes, but doesn't change.

It takes a moment to remember herself, to remember _Laura._

The fragments come together slowly, gather in the back of her head. Memories,images, faces; everything. It comes back to her in a rush, dragged back by the taste of wolfsbane on her tongue, in her blood. 

 _I'm Laura Hollis,_ she tells the reflection of the moon in the water, in a wordless whine, _and I'm not going to eat anybody just because of you, you_ _big, dumb moon._  

 


	2. liability

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Carmilla Karnstein is many things: three centuries old, creature of the night, habitual malcontent, and (regrettably) playing the part of student _again_ for mother dearest. 
> 
> What she isn't: harboring something so _juvenile_ as a crush her roommate—the most infuriating, uptight, nerdy, _adorable_ girl she's ever met—really, she isn't.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> In this chapter: dealings with _mother dearest_ , helpless pining, vampire lore, and a little showdown.

Carmilla Karnstein is many things: three centuries old, a creature of the night, habitual malcontent, and (regrettably) playing the part of student _again_ for mother dearest.

It's been twenty years since she's last had to grace Mother with her _company_ , and Carmilla has enjoyed the break. But, like always, nothing lasts. Mother's reach extends all over the world, and eventually, word had found her in Prague, in the hands of some nameless coven member, with an order veiled as a request: _your mother would like a word._

Now, two and a half months on from that day, she finds herself here, in Austria once more, at Silas University—also known as Hell on Earth (quite literally, she's convinced; there amount of _weird_ on this campus, it has to be settled on some sort of rift or rip in reality).

Silas is, quite possibly, her least favorite place in the world.

Well, that is, except for where she is _now_.

"Tell me, my sweet girl," Mother's voice is low, rich, rising menacingly. "How goes business?"

Carmilla lounges in the chair before the Dean's desk, one leg crossed over the other, arms folded over her stomach. "I took care of it," she answers, simple, low. "They won't be a problem."

She can still taste it, the coppery tang of newborn vampire blood—not quite fully human, not quite fully vampire; in the between state. 

A coven nearby, growing numbers, despite her mother's rules.

"Excellent," Lilita's smile is slow, edged, the barest flash of fangs. "And your other task?"

It takes all of her effort to swallow back the hiss. But she daren't risk it. Provoking Mother would guarantee only one thing: a swift, painful retribution, and—well, Carmilla has no interest in spending any more years below ground, in a coffin full of blood. 

"They're keeping quiet, out of sight."

At that, she earns a raised brow, smile slipping to a flat line. "Are they?" she leans forward, chin resting on an upturned palm, her eyes green like poison. "Or are you simply not looking hard enough?"

Carmilla's skin prickles, but she swallows the instinctive shudder. "I'll work harder."

"See that you do," Mother bites. "There are few uses for a girl who cannot fulfill her purpose, Mircalla."

The threat is thinly veiled.

Mother's glare, she thinks absently, could give even a charging giant pause.

(If her heart were still beating, Carmilla's certain it would have stopped all over again.)

"Yes, Mother."

The smile she's given is all teeth and bad intentions. "Good girl. Now, leave me be. There are matters I must attend to, and I'm afraid your presence is undesirable."

Carmilla inclines her head, stands. "Of course, Mother."

* * *

In the way these things normally go, in the aftermath of her meeting with Mother, Carmilla finds herself stalking restlessly through the campus.

It's late evening, and there's not that many people around; Silas University is dangerous at best during the day, but it verges on deadly at night. Not that Carmilla's worried because, well, _vampire_. If anything, she's one of the many hazards that haunt the campus, turning it from dangerous to deadly.

She's kind of glad for the reprieve, however.

University is just a cluster of awful, messy, hormonal humans, and it's all so passé to her. No matter how many times she comes back, some things never change. Students, _young people_ , are more obnoxious by the century. In fact, the twenty-first is probably the worst yet.

At any rate, she's certain her monumental glare and 'don't touch me' attitude work just as well to chase off any potential blights.

(A theory proven, when an approaching student takes one look at her, _squeaks_ , and veers off on a completely different path.)

Frustration, fury and helplessness war in her chest, monsters snarling and tangling in the space between her ribcage. Not uncommon beasts to wrestle, she finds, when she's been in the same vicinity as her mother. Because nobody terrifies and angers her as much as Lilita Morgan, as _Mother Dearest_. 

Carmilla is entirely sure that the universe hates her.

It's the revelation of three and a half centuries of review—after having her throat torn out; being turned; being kept daughter-come-captive by her sire; being _used,_ for Mother's bidding _;_  being trapped six-feet deep in the dirt for decades.

And this, being back at Silas? Back under Mother's thumb? 

If there are gods, she's certain she must have angered them in some past life.

Because this stay at Silas has presented more than just the burden of carrying out Mother's dirty work.

This time, there's the unfortunate issue of  _the roommate_ , which she's sure has her mother cackling all the way to her crypt.

Because Laura Hollis—uptight, nerdy, nosey, obnoxious girl that she is—may very well be the death of her.

Two months they've been living together now, and Carmilla has _questions_ :

  1. How much sunshine can one girl exude, before she begins to sap all the darkness out of the universe and it _implodes?_
  2. Where does the line between dedication and vanity need to be drawn? Because, she swears, Laura never turns her camera off. ("It's for my journalism class," she defends, but Carmilla's not so sure recording them _sleep_ is necessary.)
  3. How did Laura manage to lure in the most infuriating, boundary-less friends in the history of human kind? (There's a lock on the door for a reason, though apparently nobody this century has ever heard of _using it—_ or knocking, for that matter.)
  4. And most importantly: what was Mother _thinking_ , rooming her with a tiny ball of optimism and early-bird tendencies? A girl who is, not to mention, a journalism major with a propensity towards asking questions. (Seriously, it's just _asking_ to be caught—there's only so many times she can play the mysterious card before Laura pokes harder, or asks the wrong questions to the wrong people.)



There has to be a reason she's got Laura, though. It's not by some small accident of fate for her, of all people, for Carmilla to be roomed with—of that, she's certain. Mother's got a hand in this. Carmilla feels it in her bones. Mother's motto is, after all: why leave something to chance, when you can slip in a few ulterior motives for free? 

(Chess always has been Mother's favorite game.)

Of course, Carmilla can't be  _entirely_ sure that Mother's 'motivation' isn't just some sort of twisted punishment or lesson. Because Laura, despite being cute, is definitely the most infuriating human she's ever met. It's more than a little excessive. Unfortunately, she is just the sort of thing Mother would inflict on her just to make a point.

Taking a deep, world-weary sigh—an inhale of air she doesn't need—Carmilla turns her eyes to the sky. 

The moon is full, bright enough to burn through the dark clouds that obscure the stars. She hadn't lied to Laura about the possibility of a storm. It's shaping up to be a wet, rainy few days. Not exactly prime-time opportunity for camping.

Sometimes, she truly doesn't understand Laura's brain—or the collective, misguided logic that is the Scooby Squad she surrounds herself with. Camping at Silas of all places is ridiculous, likely to get them killed (though that's rather par for the course for those foolish enough to still be enrolled). But camping in the middle of a storm? Not the finest idea

There's something else there, she's sure; the way Laura had stumbled over her words, while not unusual, was not the _normal_ sort of babbling she's come to expect. There's a secret there.

Her camping, _if_ she's really camping, is not for the 'adventure' that she tried to pass it off as.

There's something like a lead weight in Carmilla's belly, a tension in her shoulders.

How much does Laura know? It's a question she's come to ask herself time and again.

Laura's already seen too much: the blood in the milk container, the late-night comings and goings, wisps of smoke in the dark when she _should_ have been asleep.

For all she's an idiot, she's not _stupid_. How long before she strings it all together?

Carmilla's fangs bite into her tongue, and she tastes her own blood between her teeth.

She has a personal stake in this: a desire to keep her nature quiet, a desire to keep Laura in the dark. The two things, so similar in nature, are not in motivation. She's no fool, she has an inkling as to  _why_ that is.

Laura is, well—

(Carmilla's always had a fondness for beautiful things.)

(But pretty things seldom care for beasts.)

Thunder cracks in the sky above, a streak of lightning splitting the sky.

Carmilla sighs, sets her teeth, as the first spatter of rain begins, beading on her leather jacket. 

She shakes thoughts of her absent roommate and her too-present mother aside, tables it for later.

For now, she has a weekend to herself: nobody to burst in on her, and no pressing engagements. She smirks. The sound of an empty room, all her own, is too promising to ignore.

Between one step and the next, smoke rises around her. 

By the next lightning flash, Carmilla's gone.

* * *

In a rare shift, the second day of Laura's absence finds Carmilla awake before sunset.  

She's not entirely sure why she's up, an easy eight hours before her usual five-o'clock start. It's weird. But sleep is evasive, and there's nothing appealing about her bed for now. Instead, she sits at the window, staring at the rain-soaked world beyond, an odd coiling in her chest.

(It's not like she actually _has_ to be asleep anyway, she decides. The whole 'aversion to daylight' thing is over-exaggerated mythos. All it does is give her a nasty sunburn—nothing SPF 50+ can't handle. Besides, vampires aren't actually nocturnal, though they largely keep to the evening hours. It's simply easier to hunt in the dark; to pull victims away from crowds and into back alleys, to get a taste, without getting pitchforks or stakes.

Of course, Carmilla's been getting blood-bank deliveries since she arrived, no hunting necessary. Perks of Mother being in charge. It's like some sort of macabre meals on wheels: fresh O+ delivered to her dorm room bi-weekly. She really only keeps the nocturnal lifestyle by choice—because crowds have never been her thing, and it's not like she actually _needs_ to attend classes.)

Although she's become accustomed to being woken up at all hours by overly noisy roommates, unwanted visitors, or summonings from her mother, none of those things are what's woken her—keeps her awake—today.

It is, she realizes, quite the opposite.

It's the _quiet._

"Hope you're enjoying the sunshine, cupcake," Carmilla mumbles into the silence, fingertip playing on the rain-streaked window pane. 

She's never been much for talking to herself. It's a mark of madness, she's quite sure; or, of a girl as enthusiastic as she is mad, with bright eyes and recording software. But, the room feels unusual, still, without Laura's aimless commentary to fill it.

Her roommate rarely leaves the room for long periods, and Carmilla's struck by the _emptiness._ It's too quiet, too lifeless. Without Laura's personality to fill up the edges of the room, her soft muttering and rhythmic heartbeat, she's struck by how _dull_ it feels; so large, desolate. 

It feels, she thinks as she looks out at the dreary day outside, rather like Laura's taken the sunshine with her.

That thought she wipes away immediately, with a hiss, because _what is she thinking_.

(Carmilla is many things, but what she isn't: harboring something so juvenile as a crush her roommate—the most infuriating, uptight, nerdy, adorable girl she's ever met—really, she isn't.)

(What she also isn't: very good at lying to herself.)

She takes a deep breath, striding over to the fridge and retrieving her carton of blood.

How cliché, that Laura should leave but her ghost won't vacate Carmilla's thoughts.

Scowling, Carmilla snags a very familiar, rectangular, "don't touch this or you'll _die_ " mug from the cupboard. As it fills with blood, she takes vindictive joy. Because nothing settles her like doing something she _knows_ will provoke her roommate. 

For good measure, Carmilla steals her favorite, yellow pillow from Laura's bed, as she passes by, collapsing on her own.

(She absolutely does not tuck it to her face, inhaling deeply.)

(Laura's scent is the strangest thing, almost addictive: sweet yet musky, rich in a way she can't place, like nothing she's smelled in centuries—and her skin prickles, as always, like some allergic, electric reaction.)

* * *

It isn't until late into Sunday afternoon that Carmilla realizes (god help her) that she's picked up an annoying habit from her roommate: leaving the door unlocked.

Because, somewhere into her third chapter of Kipling's work, it flies open with a bang.

"Laura!"

Predictably, because the universe hates her, it isn't her roommate opening the door. 

Carmilla, stretched supine in bed, straightens with a hiss. "Ever heard of knocking, Xena? Or did they give up on basic manners this century?"

Danny glowers back at her, hand pressed to the door frame. "Where's Laura?"

"Oh, you don't know?" Carmilla taunts, eyebrow raised. "Guess cupcake was right, the two of you aren't as joint at the hip as I thought. Trouble in paradise?"

Danny Lawrence is undoubtedly the most infuriating person Carmilla Karnstein has met at Silas. Since the first day they'd met, mere days into her stay, they've settled into a pattern: antagonism, sarcasm and barely-veiled hatred. It's rare for Carmilla to hate someone with such ferocity, at least on first meeting. But, in her defense, Danny provoked her.

(How, you ask? Well, Carmilla will take that secret to her grave.)

(It does, however, involve these things: disgustingly lovesick pining, a linger hand on Laura's thigh, and a beaming smile given that she _didn't deserve._ )

"Shove it, Elvira," Danny bites. "Where. Is. Laura?"

Scoffing, Carmilla drops her copy of Kipling to the bed, sitting up. "If she didn't invite you along on her little adventure, Clifford, then that's not my problem. What _is_ my problem, is that you're interrupting my nice, quiet weekend _alone._  Now get out."

Rather than retreating, Danny steps inside. "If you did something to her—"

"What are you going to do, Gingersnap?" Carmilla rises from the bed, flashing her teeth in a fangless snarl. "Fight me?"

If there's one thing she's learned about Lawrence, aside from her penchant for overprotectiveness and her (very obvious, poorly diguised) crush on Laura, is this: she doesn't back down from a challenge. 

"Where is she," Danny presses, surging forward with fire in her eyes. "If you hurt her, then—"

Carmilla catches her around the throat, glaring. "Don't mistake my _tolerance_ for _hesitation_ , Redvine. The only reason you skull is still connected to the rest of you is because _Laura—_ " she emphasizes it, squeezing just a little; a gasp wrings from Danny, throat working against her palm, "—would get on my nerves more than usual if she came home to a murder scene."

(More like: Laura would never forgive her if she killed the big, bumbling giant.)

The girl stills, and Carmilla can hear her heart racing like a hummingbird's wings. 

"Now, contrary to your baseless assumptions, _I_ haven't done anything to her. Whether or not she's caught pneumonia camping out in _that_ ," she flicks her head to the window, a flash of lightning perfectly punctuating her point, "well, that's all Laura."

Something sharpens in Danny's eyes, something like understanding. And, curiously, something like _relief_. 

She releases her grip, slowly.

Danny takes a half-step back, sucking in desperate breaths, a hand curled at her throat.

"Now, as fun as this little discussion has been, I think it's time for you to leave."

Her glare is full force, the threat implicit.

"As soon as I find out _what_ you are," Danny hisses, voice rough, "I will _end_ you."

Carmilla watches her back up, mouth flat. "I'm terrified. Truly."

With a wordless snarl, Danny leaves the room, the door slamming closed behind her.

Out of spite, Carmilla locks it. 

"Damn it, Laura," she hisses, head resting on wood. "You'll be the _death_ of me."


	3. voracious

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Laura's weekend goes a little less than smoothly, and that's an understatement.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Advance warning for some minor animal death/graphic description; nothing too crazy, but you never know. 
> 
> In other news, I head back to university on Monday (second semester of my third year, woo; only six months left next year, then my BA is done), so updates may be further spaced out, it all depends on what my schedule/muse level is like. (Ah, classes, the great sapper of motivation and will to live.)

The first reaches of sunshine peak over the horizon, shade the canopy of her tent with an orange-red tint. But it isn't the light that pulls Laura from sleep. Instead, it's the slowing of her blood, the sudden stillness, that awakens her; like a band pulled taught, suddenly gone slack, there's a thrumming echo in her veins that pulls her suddenly back into the waking world.

Laura yawns widely, licks her chops.

 _Morning already,_ she hums in her mind, rising in a slow stretch.

A shiver passes through her, like a rush of cold up and down her spine.

When Laura slumps back to the sleeping bag again, it's with naked human skin instead of fur. Her arms rise high above her head, spine popping.

"Ah," her head drops heavily into her pillow. "That's good."

Of course, the sudden cold doesn't abate with the transition back. Rather, it increases.

Without a layer of fur to keep her warm, between the open tent flap (because, well, it's hard to close when you don't have opposable thumbs) and the lingering chill of night, Laura shivers. Nothing's as good at keeping out the cold as three-hundred pounds of muscle and fur, unfortunately, though one of her werewolf-boosts seems to be a better tolerance to the cold ( _improved heat_ _retention_ , her penpal had written,  _meaning_ _super hot body—_ unfortunately literal, as Laura had found, in a sweltering summer than left her in shorts and scant shirts _)._ Though, being naked probably doesn't help.

"Okay, I change my mind, not so good," she rolls to the side, pulls on sweatpants and a thick, warm hoodie. "Holy heck, that's chilly."

Winter is coming to Silas early, it seems. Though there's no snow around, there's a definite chill in the air, and when she squints towards the tent flap, there's frost in the grass outside. 

Laura yawns widely, dragging the covers over herself. Morning can wait. She deserves a sleep-in, it's not like there's anything else for her to do. She's stuck in the woods for three nights, it's not like there's much else to do. Besides, the warmth of her sleeping bag is singing her name, especially in light of the freezing morning. 

_Grrrrgl._

"Ugh," Laura groans. "Why? Let me sleep, universe."

_Grrrrrrrrgl._

This one is longer, louder, than the first; almost threatening.

As much as she'd love to just fall back into the blankets, there's more pressing concerns: namely, filling the bottomless black-hole that is a hungry werewolf stomach.

"Fine, you win," she sighs, rolling to the side. "Food, then nap."

In order to appease her growling stomach, Laura opens her backpack, digging beneath clothes and tools for her delicious bounty.

Annnnnd, nothing.

_Um, what?_

"What? No way!"

Laura's eyes widen, and she digs even more frantically, pulling everything out and tossing it onto the blanket. It's like a war zone, so many things in such a small bag, all discarded with single-minded vengeance. But none of it's what she's _looking_ for. She checks every pocket, every zip, like a girl on a mission. But nothing. Grimacing, she shakes out every article of clothing, like somehow she'll shake out a shirt and a buffet will roll out.

When even that fails to turn anything up, she tosses the bag away.

Zip, zilch, nada.

"I did _not_ forget food. Absolutely. Totally didn't."

She eyes the pile of messy destruction and absolutely no sustenance. 

Laura's face falls.

She _definitely_ forgot food.

"Damn it, _Carmilla_ ," Laura groans, mashing her face into her hands to stifle the frustrated half-yell. "Stupid, distracting, creepy, supernaturally _weird_ roommate. This is all your fault."

And it is her fault; Laura's nothing if not a master of placing blame. Her roommate had been acting so strange, touching her, practically breathing over her shoulder—Laura had been _terrified_. She been so frantic to get away, sure that Carmilla was catching on, that she'd hightailed out of the dorm before she'd really finished packing the essentials.

Or, rather, the one essential.

She groans again.

How could she forget food? That's not even Camping 101, that's Life 101: Introduction to Basic Human Functions. 

There's a lot of things Laura has kept from her dad over the years: that she'd snuck out to a party, that she'd been bitten by too-big-to-be-a-normal-wolf wolf, and that she's a werewolf (there's no easy way to tell your father, "hey, turns out it's _not_ bad cramps that make me grumpy once-a-month, and I haven't been spending all of my allowance on 'lady things', I actually just turn into a really big, angry wolf, and wolfsbane is surprisingly expensive," and Laura's pretty sure if she tried, he'd probably have a heart attack). But this? This probably ranks a solid fourth, because Dad's always had a thing about 'proper camping set-ups' and 'always keep to the list', so he'd probably murder her if he knew she'd forgotten his twelve-step packing program.

(Or, rather, he'd probably drag her back to Toronto and lock her in her room for life—and with a stern lecture to boot.)

Three days. 

She'll be out here for three days, with no food.

It's not impossible, she can find berries or something, and it's not like she'll starve or anything—people go longer than that without food all the time. All she _really_ needs is water, and she'd picked camping next to a stream for that reason. So, okay. No big deal. She can do this. Don't freak out, Laura. Small setbacks. Don't make a mountain out of a molehill, right? 

But…

Laura lets out a low, terse sigh. "This weekend is going to  _suck."_

As if to prove a point, a clap of thunder rumbles ominously in her ears, and the first droplets of the storm begin to fall.

* * *

For most of Saturday, she manages to kill time by reading through the one book she'd brought—her  _Introduction to Journalism_ textbook. For a subject she loves, it's so dry and matter-of-fact, it almost puts her to sleep. Laura's pretty sure she does fall asleep more than once, eyes drifting shut for a second, then opening after five or six. She reads the same words over and over, and retains nothing. The only thing she recalls, after reading six chapters ahead, are the 'principles of journalism:' independence of spirit and mind, rather than neutrality. 

Eventually, though, she can't feign interest anymore, or ignore the grumbling in her stomach. So, she lays on her back, staring up at the canvas roof.

_Grrrgl._

She's still hungry.

Laura mashes her hands into her face, sighs deeply. "Ugh."

Of course, she could make the five-hour walk back to campus, raid the dorm fridge or the cafeteria. 

The rain lashes at the top of her tent, wind whistling loudly by, and a flash of lightning is visible even through the canvas.

Still, walking for five hours in a slasher-movie set up seems like an  _awful_ idea—and, coming from her, that should say something, because Laura is routinely full of Bad Ideas™. Werewolf toughness or not, there's all sorts of things that lurk around Silas, and she's less than thrilled to explore  _that_ possibility. If just walking to her Lit class often involves sentient-fungus or hobgoblin-induced detours, then she's not sure she wants to know what lurks in the darkness. 

 

As the afternoon progresses, the rain only worsens, falling in fat, heavy raindrops that sting with the force of their impact. Laura knows this with certainty, because she's full of great ideas and makes the mistake of ducking out in it to use the bathroom.

It isn't pleasant. She's soaked, head-to-toe, in an instant. Not only that, but because (and she's pretty convinced of this) life hates her, by the time she's done and scrambles back to her tent, she manages to trip over her own feet and into the wet ground, eating an epic faceful of mud.

She lays in the grass, groaning, for a full minute—ranting about Summer Society parties, the unfair bias of the gods, and how the full moon just  _had_ to coincide with a thunderstorm of epic proportions. 

The one silver lining to it all is that, at the very least, the rain is sufficient to wash the mud from her body. Her clothes aren't making a comeback from her fall, but at least she doesn't have to suffer through a weekend caked in old mud and gunk. _Thanks, rain._ What it does mean, however, is half-frantic stripping in the grass, yelping at the cold, and a torrent of rainwater in places it  _really_ shouldn't be.

By the time Laura ducks back into the tent again, zipping it firmly closed, she's soaked to the bone and  _freezing_.

"Oh, that was a mistake," she hisses, teeth chattering. "Big ol' mistake. Gosh, Laura, you really are the smartest girl at Silas."

Spurred by the cold, damp and the encroaching sunset, Laura falls forward onto all fours with a grumble and buries herself beneath her blankets.

Laura curls up beneath her sleeping bag, stomach gnawing and teeth bared, and decides that she  _really_ hates this whole werewolf thing sometimes. What even is her life?

* * *

Come late Sunday, Laura's in an all around awful mood (" _hangry, dude_ ," she can hear LaFontaine crowing) and entirely too restless for her own good.

The storm's here to stay, she's discovered, and no amount of whining, growling or pleading will make it come again another day. It's kind of nerve-wracking, actually; her tent's flapping alarmingly in the gale-force winds, and the stream has swelled to be more of a river, and still it continues to rage.

Eventually, she just bites the bullet on getting wet again. She can't stay shut up in a tent for three days, no matter how wet the storm is. And besides, animals get wet all the time—her wolf form, although it feels wrong (and somewhat species-ist to herself) to call it an 'animal', she figures is just as immune to the wet as any other animal.

So, powered by restlessness and recklessness, Laura stays in her human form just long enough to open and shut the tent flap behind her, and then she's bursting into the grass on four legs.

The ground mushes and clings disgustingly to her paws, the mud like quicksand trying to suck her in. But there isn't much that can hold a three-hundred pound wolf where it doesn't want to be, so she drags herself out of the clearing and into the safer ground of the trees.

Her fur hangs wetly around her, and the downpour whips at her eyes and seeps slowly to her spine. It makes her spine twitch and her ears flatten, but there's a freshness in the air, a crispness, that she can't help but appreciate after being stuck between four canvas walls for what feels like an eternity.

_Grrrrgl._

Laura snarls, trotting beneath the roots and low-hanging branches of an ancient tree. 

She's starving, there's no denying that now. It's been (three?) days since she last ate anything resembling a meal (cookies and candy, scoffed before her Friday morning class), and it's agonizing. It wouldn't be so bad, she thinks, if she wasn't moonlighting—quite literally—as a totally-nuts-ginormous wolf. 

(Laura's no expert on physics or biology or spooky supernatural curses, but she  _is_ an expert on herself. And she's never so hungry as when she's fresh off a transformation, like somewhere in shifting her entire body it saps all the calories she's eaten that week—it feels, sometimes, like she's a marathon sprinter fresh off a twenty-four hour race, and tapped to her core.)

Currently, Laura's hunger level feels somewhere between "considering eating own foot" and a post-apocalyptic "would eat ten-year old, canned sardines and be grateful" sort of thing. Which, well, yeah. Not great. Sardines are gross, and age definitely  _doesn't_ improve palatablity. 

It's never felt so apt to call her sense of hunger _gnawing,_ because it's like there's a pit deep inside of her and it's trying to seize control of her entire body, urging her to go on a hunt-and-slaughter fest. Which, bad. Very, very bad.

Wolfsbane, she's discovered, only goes as far as your own self-control does, and with each calorie burned-but-not-replaced, Laura's verging closer to losing a war she doesn't want to consider losing. She's been successful so far in avoiding hurting anyone else, or reenacting her own turning day, and she's not prepared to experience that yet.

Laura blinks the water out of her eyes, letting out a low grumble. 

 _Stop worrying_ ,  _brain_ , she chides herself,  _think about good things, like the nice, big burger you're going to treat yourself to when you get back._

Her mouth waters, and she licks absently at her chops. She can see it now, a mountain of cheese, double (triple? quadruple?  _all of it_ ) meat, and as many fries as she can handle before she explodes. God, she'd kill for a burger— _no, Laura, bad, no murder for your meals._

Frustrated, she strides through the wet and the underbrush. 

A sound catches her attention, through the roar of thunder and the slicing rain; a rustle of brush and the muted crunch of half-soaked leaves. 

Laura freezes, baring her teeth, pupils wide.

The sounds continue, creeping ever closer.

A hare pops out of the bushes, soaking wet and shivering. It freezes at the sight of her.

Jaws stretched wide, a snarl ripping through her; it isn't the girl who makes the next move. Blood roaring louder than the thunder in her ears, vision slicing into blurs and blackness, the wolf  _attacks._

 

When Laura comes back to herself, claws herself free from the primal, snarling part of her brain, it takes Laura a minute to put the pieces back together. She shakes her head, almost violently, side to side. A low, tense sounds comes from her, but it catches thickly in her throat, at the trace of  _something_ , and—

_Oh, God._

Laura stares down the length of her own muzzle with crossed-eyes, squinting at the white-tinged-red fur. 

_Did I…?_

The tight, clawing sensation in her stomach is abated, somewhat. Her belly is warm and full, and her tongue tastes coppery-but-weirdly-delicious, and she's pretty sure there's _fur_ stuck in the back of her throat. Oh, no. Why did she…? How did she…?

She lets out a low, unsteady whimper.

_Holy Hufflepuff, I did. I just ate a bunny._

Can wolves hyperventilate?

Laura whines, chest heaving and paws digging harshly into the dirt.

She's pretty sure she's hyperventilating.

 _Oh my god, I'm a monster,_ she looks at the smear of blood on the ground and her paws, grimaces at the oddly _furry_ texture caught between her teeth. _Oh god, did I eat the bones? I'm pretty sure I ate the whole thing, but…bones are bad? And it was raw, too! What about the diseases? Can I get sick? This seems like something I can get sick from. How will I explain this at my funeral? 'Laura Hollis: Died Because She Wolfed Down a Rabbit'. Oh god, oh god._

This has never happened before, at least not that she remembers. The full moons without wolfsbane are a blur, and she doesn't remember what she did during them (she's not sure she wants to know). But she's always been careful, with her packing. She always brings enough food. There's nothing worse than a hungry werewolf, wolfsbane or no. She's never been so mindlessly, overwhelmingly ravenous.

But then Carmilla had to come along, so pretty and sarcastic and _on to her_ , and Laura had panicked.

And now, she's paying the price; or the hare is, at any rate (and  _that_ though doesn't help her nausea).

 _Okay, okay, don't freak out, it's just a rabbit._ Laura calms herself, forcing her breathing to somewhat normal pace, although her heart is racing in her chest and her paws are weary anxious ditches in the dirt.  _Th_ _ink of it like a really rare steak, like you just stopped at the grocery store and…_ _picked it up. There's all sorts of consumer standards and safety measures. No big deal. You'll be fine. It's not like you snapped up a rabbit in the forest and ate it. Ha. Not at all. Yup._

Laura retreats back to her tent with a heavy stomach and a heavier soul.

She can  _never_ tell anyone about this.

* * *

By the time Laura drags herself back to campus on Monday morning (she absolutely does not get turned around three times, because the rain’s washed away her scent on the trees), it's late. She's sure she's missed her classes, but she can't bring it upon herself to care.

Laura's exhausted, both from the change and the trek. She hasn’t showered in days, unless you count an accidental tumble into a river, or being caught in a thunderstorm. Even after the ordeal which  _must not be remembered_ , Laura's stomach is raring its head once again, and all she can think about is inhaling the first snack she sees. All she wants is food, a shower, and a long, uninterrupted nap, in that order. 

The moment she steps out of the trees, her phone starts screaming at her. Or, more accurately, _Danny_ starts screaming at her. A rapid series of messages: one, two, three—she loses count,  but her phone flashes with more than a hundred missed texts and calls.

> _danny:_ where r u?  
>  _danny:_ laura?  
>  _danny:_ it's the full moon  
>  _danny:_ laf said u disappeared  
>  _danny:_ are you safe?  
>  _danny:_ i'm worried

They only go on like that, getting more and more hysterical: begging and pleading, alternatively, to be safe and to call and to not be dead. There's something about how she 'better not have been killed by Wednesday Addams', and an increasingly aggressive (and strongly worded) rant about Carmilla.

And, yeah, oops—probably should have told Danny where she was going, but in her haste to flee, she'd sort of forgotten.

> _danny:_ i checked with vampirella  
>  _danny:_ she said u went 'camping'  
>  _danny:_ please tell me that's not code for 'i murdered her and buried her'  
>  _danny:_ i checked our spot, u weren't there  
>  _danny:_ where r u?  
>  _danny:_ call me

Laura's exhausted to her bones, on a cellular level. And, though her phone hovers over the 'call' button, she can't bring herself to press it. Instead, she types out a quick: 'back now, safe, talk to you later' and turns her phone off.

It takes all of her effort not to collapse onto any promising-looking benches or patches of grass. It's probably for the best. No need to draw _more_ attention to herself. There's already students staring at her, dirt-smeared and dog-tired as she is, with a hiking bag on her back and a ragged edge to her.

Though she's not the weirdest sight at Silas, everybody jumps at every half-crazy thing, awaiting the future calamity to unfold. She tries not to be offended when people give her a wide berth, or detour to get away from her. She fails, of course, but she tries. To be fair, she'd probably do the same.

There's no greater relief than when she half-staggers out of the dorm elevator, unlocks the door to room 307, and steps inside.

Yawning, Laura drops her bag to the floor, kicks off her muddy boots, and stomps straight to the fridge. She doesn’t register Carmilla—standing, mug in hand and eyebrow quirked—beyond more than a glance and a pivot to step around her. Peering inside, brow scrunched, she digs through the shelves.

She still doesn’t fully understand the transformation process (it’s a healthy dose of magic and ignoring the laws of nature, she thinks), all she knows is that she's more voracious than she's ever been. A single rabbit (and, God, she'll never get that delicious, awful, amazing taste out of the back of her mouth) isn't enough to replace all she's lost.

Against all odds, Laura can  _feel_ the difference in herself; hollowed out, hungry, between the forced changes and the days without food, she's not sure  _how_ but she's certain she's lost at least ten pounds, and she's prepared to ingest all of them in one sitting.

“Well, hello to you too,” Carmilla greets, arms crossed. “Rough weekend, cutie?”

Shrugging a shoulder, Laura practically jams her head into the refrigerator, chasing the scent of something interesting with her nose. “Where is all the food? I bought food. Where is it?"

Head tilting, Carmilla leans against the counter. “That was three weeks ago. And all you bought was cookies.”

“And soda,” Laura defends, frowning, but the expression immediately brightens when she shoves aside Carmilla’s milk (or supposed milk carton), and finds the source of the smell. “Yeeees."

Laura pops open the container, taking a deep, eager inhale. Her stomach growls once, loudly. It’s matched by the growl she accidentally lets out, low and pleased.

“ _Yes,_ ” she doesn’t even reach for a fork, just crouches in front of the refrigerator door like a madwoman and stuffs chow mein into her mouth with her bare hands. “Mm.”

"Wow, okay," Carmilla’s brows rise high. “You feeling alright there, cupcake?”

“I’m starving,” she grumbles between bites, half-glaring at her roommate. She pauses only to reach into the fridge for a soda, cracking it open with her free hand (covering the can in sauce) and taking a deep gulp. “Food now, conversation later.”

There’s a pause, heavy, disbelieving.

Laura ignores it, shoveling noodles into her mouth at lightning speed.

“You do know that’s old, right?”

“Don’t care,” Laura huffs. “S’good.”

“You’re going to get sick.”

“Pfft,” Laura waves her off, pops a piece of broccoli into her mouth with a flourish. “Stomach of steel.”

Carmilla stares at her, openly, like she’s considering whether or not Laura should be forcibly committed somewhere. “Famous last words,” she says, like the words pain her. “Don’t come crawling to me when you’ve got food poisoning, sweetheart.”

“I’ll be _fine._ ”


	4. malicious

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Carmilla suffers—which, while not entirely _unusual _, is less than ideal when all she's really trying to do is help (and really, this would all be so much easier if she really were some morally bankrupt, soulless monster, intent on devouring young girls and committing evil).__
> 
> Laura really doesn't understand how her life keeps coming down to this. And yep, her roommate definitely isn't human. And she's also, somewhat, maybe, a little homicidal? Or, at least, she is where Danny's involved.

After inhaling foul-smelling takeout, at least three grape sodas, and tearing into every last snack she has hidden in the cupboards, Laura collapses onto her bed and immediately passes out. She doesn’t even shower, or wash her hands—much to Carmilla’s disgust (seeing her tiny, cute roommate ingest the contents of their fridge with her bares hands in under ten minutes is probably one of the vilest things Carmilla’s seen in at least three decades).

There’s going to be enough mud and food smears in Laura’s sheets to drive their resident, OCD Floor Don into a seizure. She can practically _smell_ the Clorox wipes already.

Carmilla doesn't often find herself lost for words, the byproduct of being centuries old. Life (or undeath, as it is) becomes rather stagnant at a point. There are only so many surprises one can partake in before the surprise becomes, well, routine. This, however, is definitely surprising, shocking, completely  _incomprehensible_. And really, she isn't equipped to deal with whatever the hell is going on here. Her weekend's been bad enough, between Mother and the Ginger Giant and all the usual tortures that coincide with life on the literal hub of hell that is Silas. She just doesn't have the processing power.

So naturally, like a good, caring roommate, Carmilla does the only thing that comes to mind: she stares.

“What the f—”

Laura grumbles in her sleep, apparently offended even by the merest _suggestion_ of profanity, and tugs her pillow closer.

It’s been centuries since she was last human, but she’s not foolish enough to believe this is normal, human behavior, let alone normal, Laura behavior. Her roommate is overbearing, obsessive and obnoxious, sure, but she’s also very much a tidy, ‘eat with utensils’, ‘doesn’t inhale week-old food’ sort of girl. Although Carmilla's witnessed her inhale entire rows of cookies while invested deep in her work, she's never seen anything quite like  _this_.

There is, quite obviously, something wrong with Laura.

(And for once, it isn’t her infuriating optimism or her insistence on trying to maintain a ‘chore wheel’.)

Carmilla had known her little camping trip was an awful, ill-conceived idea. Storm aside, Silas is not safe and most certainly not a place anybody should be spending outdoors, in the dark, on the full moon. Carmilla knows better than anyone, all manner of things lurk in the dark, especially in this fantastic little piece of hell-on-earth; all sorts of dark, nasty things, waiting for a cute, oblivious girl to stumble too far into the shadows. It makes her fangs threaten to surge out, the thought of something touching Laura, harming her.

Her heart had leaped at the sight of Laura returning back from her trip. She'd sprung out of bed the moment she'd heard the familiar footfalls in the hallway, a little more sluggish and a little heavier than usual, but still distinctive from anyone else. She'd been ready to reclaim the lost time, prodding and poking Laura enough to make up for the weekend she's been absent (because yes, her infuriated face really does make Carmilla's unmoving heart flutter; her face screws up, her brow bunches, and she  _pouts_ , like an angry kitten). 

After a long moment of silent staring, she makes her way over to her roommate’s bedside.

“Creampuff?”

There’s no response, except deep, heavy breaths.

Carmilla sighs, prods her shoulder (carefully avoiding a very filthy patch of skin, with golden-stained-brown hair stuck to it). “Cupcake?”

Again, nothing.

“Laura?”

Carmilla does all she can think of, from shaking her shoulder to (lightly) jabbing Laura’s side, but she doesn’t come out of it. It’s almost like she’s in a coma. All she gives as a response is a low, throaty murmur, rumbling through her tiny frame like a growl. 

There’s nothing wrong with her, not physically at least, because her heartbeat is steady, her breathing is even, and she looks fine. But between the way she’d stumbled in, half-dead and acting crazy, and the fact that she won’t _wake_ , well, Carmilla’s justifiably concerned.

Kneeling on the edge of the bed, she manhandles the half-damp, very dirty hoodie from Laura’s limp body. It leaves her in a similarly filthy tank top, arms and shoulders bare. Laura doesn’t do anything more than grumble, pressing her face deeper into the pillow. She looks over the bare skin, carefully inspecting the arches and crevices of her skin, searching. Her fingers skirt Laura’s neck (and she’ll deny it, later, but she lingers for a too-long moment there, licking her lips), her shoulders, turn her dirt-speckled arms out.

Nothing—no bites, no bruises, no cuts, no supernatural leeches or anything untoward.

What there _is,_ however, is something off.

Carmilla leans a little closer, half-crouched over her roommate, inhaling deeply. Beneath the awful smell of mud, old food, too-sweet soda and rain, there’s something else—and, _god_ , Laura’s either spent all weekend sharing a tent with a dog, or she’s secretly volunteering at an animal shelter and doesn’t want to own up to it, because all she can smell is  _fur_. And, looking harder, she can even see it; strands, white and brown, all over her clothes.

Still, there's something _more—_ beneath sweat and musk and dog, there's something she can't name.

Her nose wrinkles, and Carmilla hovers closer, seeking, trying to pin down the elusive smell. With her nose practically touching Laura’s neck, over her pulse point, she catches the same notes of Laura’s unique scent—it makes her skin prickle, her fangs slip a little, and it’s as intoxicating as it is dizzying as it is _strange_.

"Get away from her!”

Carmilla barely has the time to look up before the door flies open and Danny charges across the room, tackling her off Laura’s bed.

“Argh,” Carmilla snarls, thick and furious, and lets out a very distinctly _inhuman_ hiss.

They hit the floor hard, tangling on the hardwood. Danny settles on top of her, one hand holding her wrists down, the other scrambling for some sort of weapon.

Carmilla doesn’t give her any chances, and there’s few things that can hold back a very angry, supernaturally-enhanced vampire. She wrenches her arms free, and flips their positions. She presses a hand into Danny’s throat, hearkening back to their earlier dispute, and another slams into the floorboards by her head, raking deep, clawing marks into the wood.

“Go ahead,” she bites out, struggling to keep her fangs leashed. “Give me another reason.”

Danny glares up at her, all fire and bluster. “I _knew_ you were up to something. Whatever you are, I _won’t_ let you hurt Laura!”

“Oh, and I suppose you’d stop me if I wanted to?” Carmilla retorts, pressing her body down heavily, stilling the taller girl’s attempts to struggle out of her grasp. “Do you have a deathwish, Groot? We've been over this, haven't we? Or are you really that naïve to think you’d _win_ this little showdown?”

“It doesn’t matter,” Danny bites out. “I’ll keep her safe.”

“Well, you’re doing a _great_ job,” Carmilla growls, wood splintering beside Danny’s head from the force of her nails. “Truly stellar. I’m sure you’ll be able to protect her from all the big, bad monsters out there.”

“You’re the only monster here.”

“Oh, keep flattering me,” Carmilla leans down, glaring promisingly into her eyes. “I’ll show you just how _monstrous_ I can be.”

"You may fool Laura, but you can't fool me. She's too trusting, too sweet, but I _know_ your type," Danny glares back, undaunted, even with a hand around her throat. "You can say what you want, do what you want, kill me if you want to. But you can't take back  _what you are_. You're a monster, hurting people is all you _can_ do. So go ahead, kill me. It'll only prove my point. But don't think, not for a minute, that you'll make it out of this room if you do."

Carmilla sneers, flashing fangs. "Think you can stop me?"

"I don't need to," Danny bites back, and there's a glint in her eyes, something knowing; the flash of a promise. "If I have to die to make Laura realize what you are, to  _wake her up_ , then I will. Do it. Kill me. See what happens next."

She hisses, wordless, furious—for all the things she understands and doesn't, for the dark look in Danny's eyes, for the words that she hates are  _true_ , for everything and everything.

Carmilla's nails dig in, just the tiniest bit, to Danny's neck; pinpricks of blood pool there, wet her nails. "You're playing with fire, Gingersnap," she hisses, the scent of copper thick in the air, tempting, and the boiling sensation in her veins wants nothing more than to crush her, kill her, drink her dry.

Danny bares her teeth back.

* * *

Sleep comas are pretty much a fact of life following the full moon, and she's pretty much resigned herself to that. It's nice, actually, because after the hike and starvation and (no, don't think about the bunny) _other events_ , she's exhausted on a supernatural level. Laura collapses into bed with an uncomfortably full belly, kicking off muddy shoes, and passes out immediately. The darkness is blessed, restful, well-deserved.

But, in the unfortunate way her life seems to be going lately, Laura doesn't get more than fifteen minutes of blissful, comatose rest before  _something_ has to go wrong.

Namely, shouting, cracking and, more importantly, a distinctive smell— _coppery smell; salt and rust; iron; wet pennies; a nick while shaving._

It's the smell of blood that awakens her, kicks alive a primal, bestial part of her.

There's something else, too; fear, fury, familiar perfume, mixing and mingling like palpable things, stirring something into wakefulness, piercing the veil that's settled over her.

Laura groans, peeling her face off her pillow.

“Guys, what’s with all the noise? I’m trying to—” she breaks off, blinking once, twice, before she practically _flies_ out of bed, exhaustion forgotten. “Whoa! No! Stop! Stop with the attempted murder!”

A sleeping werewolf sleeps the sleep of the dead, but she's  _not_ going to sleep through the potential death of someone she would very much like to keep alive, thank you—and she  _knows_ Carmilla and Danny hate each other, that they've never been anything but frosty or bitter parties sharing space, but what the  _heck_ has led to Carmilla trying to choke the hell out of Danny?

"Carmilla!"

At first, neither one of them react, frozen in a staredown for the ages. 

“Carmilla, _stop_!” Laura scrambles to her roommate's side, heart racing like a jackhammer. “Let Danny go!”

Neither move, locked together with teeth bared, battling silently.

The blood wells around Carmilla's fingernails.

Wood splinters harder, cracks loudly in the silent room.

Violence has never been Laura's preferred method of problem solving. She's relatively level-headed, and wolfish-nature aside, she's never been much for displays of strength or toughness. She, all five-feet and two inches of her, has never really had a reason to get into an altercation. And sure, years of Krav Maga has taught her how to defend herself (to a black-belt certified level, even), but she's never actually had to  _use_ it. 

Still, Laura’s not exactly cool with the whole ‘trying to strangle and potentially maul my friend’ thing, and she’s still fresh off the full moon (with all the lingering strength and grumpiness it brings), and she's just terrified enough to take things into her own hands—literally.

“There’s a zero violence, zero murder policy in this room!” she shouts, shoving at Carmilla’s shoulders—she doesn’t move, even when Laura uses enough strength to displace a bed, so she pushes _hard_. “Stop!”

Carmilla flies off Danny, tumbles backwards into the closet with a force so hard, it buckles and cracks around her.

Clothes rattle and cascade off hangers, toppling to the floor or on top of Carmilla. 

Danny picks herself up slowly.

Laura's eyes flicker rapidly between her hands, her roommate, and the state of their shared closet. 

"Well," Carmilla hisses, laying in the wreckage, "that was unexpected."

Danny edges in front of her, standing tall, but her hand is cradling her neck, and there's a little bit of blood on her hand. It's not a lot, the wounds aren't deep by any means, but there's enough.

The copper smell is thick in the air, clogging Laura's still-sensitive nose, and her eyes fixate on the slope of Danny's neck, heart thudding rapidly—adrenaline, fear and concern, all wrapped in one lovely, bordering-hyperventilation box. 

Laura steps closer, on the tips of her toes, staring at the crescent, bloodied marks around Danny's neck. There's bruising forming, too, ugly blue-purple blotches in the distinctive shape of fingerprints. 

"Are you okay?"

"Yeah, I'm fine," Danny's voice is, if at all possible, raspier than Carmilla's normally is. But it's not the low, smokey, seductress tone that her roommate prefers. This is one-hundred percent an 'I just got choked for the better part of who knows how long, and I really don't advise it' sort of rasp. It's not pleasant. It  _sounds_ like it hurts. But she looks at Laura with warm eyes. "Thanks to you."

"What the f—" she lets out a high, wordless sound, " _freaking_  heckwere you two  _doing_?"

Carmilla stands, reaches behind her back, and with a hiss of pain pulls a five-inch long piece of wood from her back. "Reenacting Fight Club, obviously," she snarks, dropping the blood-coated shard to the floor. "Isn't that right, Xena?"

"I told you she was dangerous, Laura," Danny retorts, taking a slight, jerky step towards her roommate. "Look at her. She's a  _monster_. She was going to hurt you!"

Laura rushes ahead, steps in front of Danny, pushes her back with a firm hand against her stomach. "What?"

"Like I told you last time, you insufferable cur, if I wanted to hurt her don't you think I'd have done it a _long_ time ago?" Carmilla retorts. "Like when she plays that awful pop music, or watches that tiresome science-fiction show, or when she won't stop babbling. I've had  _endless_ reasons, Godzilla, but did it ever occur to you that maybe—oh, I don't know, I don't actually  _want_ to hurt her?"

Danny's face contorts. "Oh, right! Like hovering over her, leering at her like she's going to be your next meal, is entirely innocent! I'm not sure what you are, but we all know you're not  _normal_ ," she gestures pointedly at the long, claw-like marks in the hardwood, the irrefutable proof, because no human could have done that, they'd have ripped their nails off before scratching the ancient floor. She turns her eyes to Laura. "Whatever she was up to, Laura, it wasn't good. She looked like she was going to, to _bite_ you. And I wasn't going to let her hurt you."

Carmilla's expression shifts, unreadable. "You thought I was going to—" she lets out a low, gravelly laugh. "You really  _are_ a moron."

"You can't just claim innocence, after all that!" Danny points at her neck, where the blood's stopped flowing, wounds beginning to scab. "Look at what you did! What you were doing! You can't deny the evidence, Elvira!"

"I said I wouldn't hurt  _her_. That doesn't extend to you."

"Oh, right, like I believe that!"

"Oh, believe it," Carmilla smiles, razor-edged. "I'd like  _nothing more_ than to finish what we started, Bigfoot."

Danny advances again, trying to step around Laura, who pointedly presses her back a little tighter.

"That's right, cupcake, keep your little guard dog on a leash. Otherwise, I'll be putting Old Yeller down  _myself_."

This is too much, all of it.

Laura's had the worst weekend of her year, definitely, and most probably her life (short of her being turned into a werewolf), and her capacity to deal with any of this is rapidly reaching the point of overflowing. She can't. There's only so much one person can deal with before it explodes. Although the full moon is gone, there's still a power rush in her veins, the trembling, furious thing inside of her chest. The wolf roils, claws at her ribcage, raging like a wild thing inside of her. Her teeth ache with how hard she has to clench her jaw, just to force it back.

Her eyes flick between Danny's resolute, angry face, and to Carmilla's emotionless, closed-off expression.

"I can't do this."

Danny regards her. "Laura, what—"

She holds up a hand. "I'm not doing this, not today. I am so  _tired_ ," she lets out an aching, world-weary sigh. "I honestly don't have the power to do this. I just don't."

"But she—"

Laura shakes her head.

"Danny, just stop. I don't know what happened, and frankly, I don't care. Whatever you think, I'm pretty sure Carmilla wouldn't hurt me," and the girl in question looks a little surprised, but heartened, with Laura's words. "That being said, I'm not sure exactly what just happened, and I'm not sure I want to know. All I want is to get an hour of sleep, undisturbed, without my friends trying to murder each other,  _or_ me. I've had the worst weekend of my life, and I really don't need this, not today. I just don't have the energy to deal with it, or either of you."

Carmilla scoffs, crosses her arms.

Danny shifts, unsure.

"Now, you!" she points at Danny. "Thank you for your concern. It's appreciated but unnecessary, and frankly a little over the top! We'll be having words about it, later. I just—I need some time alone, to sleep, process, and understand exactly when the heck my life turned into a bad soap opera. So, if you wouldn't mind…"

Danny winces, wounded. "Laura…"

"Thank you for coming, and I'm sorry you got hurt, but please leave," she says, firm. "We'll talk.  _Later_."

It takes a moment, she stares at Laura like she's waiting for her to take it back, to ask her to stay. But when that moment isn't forthcoming, she sighs, shoulders slumping.

"Later," Danny agrees, makes to leave. She pauses at the door. "Sorry, Laura."

Laura takes a deep, fortifying breath. "You're my friend, and that hasn't changed, but I'm kind of mad at you right now, Danny. So please, go. I'll…text you, okay?"

"Okay."

Carmilla snarls, low, wordless, when she finally disappears through the door. "Good riddance."

"And  _you_ ," Laura bites, turns on her heel and points at Carmilla, her glare heated. "What were you  _thinking_?"

Rather than answering, Carmilla turns her back on her, busies herself with picking more splinters from her skin, her clothes. "Well, cutie, that was a hell of an intervention. Congratulations. I'm sure our lovely, resident neat-freak will be along shortly to inspect the wreckage and dispense a tedious little lecture. Oh, joy."

Laura doesn't let her retreat, or avoid the question, pressing forward. "Why?"

"Because she's insane," Carmilla retorts, dropping another blood-slicked spike to the floor—and Laura winces, guilty, concerned, at the sight of it, even though it doesn't seem to have impacted her roommate at all (and there's no sight of a wound or anything once she pulls it out). "Certifiable, I suspect. Really, her insistence on cleaning is verging on manic."

She steps around her, crosses her arms (and then grimaces at herself, suddenly realizing just how filthy she still is, because the motion pulls at the mud and food coating her forearm). "With  _Danny_ , Carmilla. I don't know if you know this, but waking up to my roommate trying to  _choke my friend to death_ is not my ideal wake-up call. I know you guys don't get along, but I'd like to think we're all somewhat functional, reasonable adults capable of dealing with people we don't like  _without_ resorting to homicide!"

"You don't know me."

The words are low, bitter, and Carmilla's staring back at her with dark eyes.

Laura stares up at her. "You're right, I don't," she answers, softly. "But…I know, whatever happened, that you're not normally like this. Sure, you're sarcastic, you're messy, you have a bad attitude, and you really don't understand how the whole 'reasonable, respectful roommate' thing goes, but…I've never seen you like that before. You look like you wanted to—" her words falter, die in her throat, "—to do something really stupid."

Suddenly, Carmilla shrugs, turns her eyes away. "Whatever."

"Don't do that."

"What?"

"Just don't," she implores, and sure, her roommate is terrifying and  _definitely_ not human (the splintered floorboards and the heavy, immovable weight of her are proof enough of that). She'd known it from the moment Carmilla had walked in that first day, and she knows it now, with the wolf so close to the surface, from the prickling at her skin. Carmilla isn't normal, but neither is Laura, and she understands that _supernatural_ and  _monster_ aren't synonymous; and she wants, so desperately, to believe that Carmilla isn't the monster Danny thinks she is, isn't so carelessly, callously violent. "Talk to me. What _really_ happened?"

There's a long, drawn out moment. Carmilla turns her head back, tips her head slightly. Her mouth opens.

It closes again.

She  _sees_ Carmilla shutting her out, shoving her hands in the pockets of her jacket. "Nothing."

"I don't believe that."

"Believe what you want. I'm done talking."

Laura watches her step over the debris of their closet, turn her back, and walk out the door.

"Where are you going?"

Carmilla snarls. "Leaving you alone."

The door slams behind her.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So it's very belated (I'm back in classes, I've got the flu, _and_ I burned myself out writing like 70k+ words last month, sue me), but here it is. This chapter has been a massive pain in the butt, and I'm still not 100% confident with it, but I'm in the "throw it on the fire and scream into the darkness" phase of writer's apathy, so it was either post it or leave this story in limbo for the foreseeable future until I knew what the heck I was doing.
> 
> (Also, nobody talk about the fact that I started _another_ fic before I updated this one. I'm terrible, I know. But you should [check it out](https://archiveofourown.org/works/11563974), second chapter's dropping sometime this week.)


	5. evidence

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> An investigation into just _what_ exactly her roommate is turns up results and Laura is conflicted. When did her life turn into a soap opera?

"Wow…so those are deep."

Laura stares at the grooves gouged into the floorboards. "Do you think Perry will notice?"

"You can always invest in a nice rug to distract her, I guess.  _But_ ," LaFontaine gestures at the ruins of the closet, the pile of clothes, and the assortment of half-bloody splinters all over the floor (and she really, really needs to apologize to Carmilla for that, scary murder-fight aside), "she'll _definitely_ notice that."

"I'm in so much trouble," she groans, burying her face in her hands.

LaFontaine pats her back gently. "Don't worry. There's worse things to be afraid of than Perry on the warpath."

"Like what?"

They pause, thinking. "Well, those claw marks pretty much confirm that your roommate is _definitely_ less than human. Which, I mean, we already knew that. But there's proof, at least. But hey, good news," they gesture at the marks again, grinning. "Obviously, if she was going to try to murder you, she'd have done it ages ago."

Laura stares at them, gaping. "You…are _so_ not helping."

"I'm just saying, a girl who can do _that_ is definitely not unfamiliar with the whole notion of violence, and attempting to murder Danny probably only reinforces that, but," they shrug, "she obviously doesn't want to hurt you, or that'd be your face. And hey, bonus, it's not like she _really_ hurt Danny."

She bites her lip. "I mean, there was a little blood, and a bunch of bruises."

LaFontaine's eyes shift to the poor, splintered remains of their wardrobe. "Yeah, well, I think she got more than enough payback for that one. I mean, you kind of wolfed out on her, Hollis."

"Things may have gotten slightly out of hand," she concedes, wincing. "But I was kind of panicking, because it's not every day you wake up to your roommate trying to choke your friend to death beside your bed. Not my finest moment, and I do feel bad about the whole 'splinter in her spine' thing, but she kind of ran out before I could apologize."

A sparkle of interest lights up LaF's eye. "That's a little more than a splinter, Frosh," they say, wandering over to the debris and picking up a rather large, rather bloody spike. "This is probably more like a stake situation, if anything."

"Yeah," Laura winces again. "I…really need to apologize, don't I?"

"Don't apologize, this is great!" they reply, wiggling it between their fingertips pointedly. "Do you know what this means? Aside from grievous bodily harm and, hey, a potential prison sentence if convicted? This is _evidence_ in our game of  _Guess Who: Supernatural Creatures_ Edition. Exhibit A, this. Exhibit B, totally non-human claw marks in the floor."

Laura's brow scrunches. "There's a lot of supernatural creatures, LaF. Trust me. How do we figure out what she really is?"

"You're the resident expert, Jacob Black." Laura twitches. " _But_ , this helps narrow it down. We know she's got red blood, she's not particularly bothered by impaling, she's got crazy wood-clawing abilities, _and_ she's pretty much nocturnal. Now, we run tests, do some investigating, and figure it out."

"Sleuthing time?"

"You know it," they grin.

An actual investigation? That's badass.

"I'm in."

"Great!" LaFontaine brightens. "I'll head down to the bio lab with this and run a couple tests. Maybe her blood's got some sort of freaky, supernatural cells that'll tell us exactly what she is. Like big, glowing red blood cells spelling out 'I'm actually a wendigo, LaFontaine, thanks for asking.' Meanwhile, you stay here, see what you can dig up," they glance at the mess, both caused by the fight and Carmilla's slovenly tendencies, "literally."

Laura's nose wrinkles. "Yeah, okay. Hey, maybe she has a diary or something, with an 'I'm actually an immortal, soul-sucking creature, cutie,' confession on the front page."

"Well, you work on the diary angle, I'll do the science. Meet back here in a few hours?"

"You got it!"

LaFontaine makes to head off, but they pause in the doorway. "Oh, and Laura?"

"Yeah?"

"You…may want to do something about all of this," they gesture at the mess. "Perry's class finishes in less than an hour, and, well, she's probably only a _little_ less scary than whatever's living in this room with you."

Laura grimaces. "I'm so dead."

 

* * *

 

The creak of the door opening (and really, they need to start locking that) startles Laura. She panics, holding a very large fragment of wood in her hand, looking for a place to stash it. Her eyes scan the room rapidly, locking on the open window.

Wow, it's a bad idea.

"Sweetie?"

But, well, her first ideas usually are.

She tosses it out the window, ignoring the yelp and the clattering below, and slams the window pane shut. She spins swiftly around, leaning against the glass and fixing Perry with a brilliant, only _slightly_ wobbly, smile.

"Heeey, Perry," she replies. "What's up?"

The Floor Don isn't wearing her usual smile, in fact, there's a very noticeable aura of displeasure and concern around her. "I had some noise complaints from some of the others, and they said that it sounds like there was some fighting going on? Is everything alright?"

Laura's eyes flit towards the empty space where the closet had once stood, now cleared (read: painstakingly lugged to the dumpster downstairs, or haphazardly piled under a mound of discarded clothes). It's taken the better part of forty minutes just to deal with the bulk of the mess. 

"Yeah, fine! I'm good, Perry! How are you? How was class? Long, right? I bet it was long. Woo boy, classes, am I right?" 

Perry tilts her head a little, eyes flickering around the room, settling on the clothing pile in the place of the wardrobe. "Laura…is something going on?"

"Nope, nothing! Just catching up on laundry, you know how it is," she shrugs, flaps a hand. "And some furniture rearranging. We're doing the whole 'feng shui' thing, you know? Carmilla's very into it."

"Is that the rug from the common room?" Perry asks, frowning.

Laura's eyes shift to the ugly, faded-red rug that she _absolutely hasn't stolen_ , painfully aware of the claw marks underneath that will probably send Perry into a conniption, heart failure, or both. "No? I'm just…trying out some interior decorating, embracing my inner designer, you know how it is."

"Well," Perry squints at her, doubtful. "If you'd please keep it down?"

"Right, yes, of course! I'm sorry, Perry! You won't hear anything from this room again, cross my heart!"

She nods. "Alright, Laura. Well…if you need anything?"

"You'll be the first person I ask," Laura tells her, although that's pretty far from the truth—Perry's probably the last person she'd bother with this particularly conundrum, though if it was another sentient-mold outbreak or anything to do with hygiene, Perry would always be the first port of call. "Thanks, Perry."

"Okay," Perry pauses at the door, tilting her head. "Oh, Laura?"

"Yes?"

"What  _did_ you do with your closet?"

Laura's smile cracks a little— _oh no_. "Thanks for coming, Perry!" she darts to her side, shepherding her friend out. "I'll see you later, okay? And, um, I'll keep it down, I promise."

"Oh, well, alright," Perry leaves with a final, frowning glance back.

Laura shuts the door with a wave, and collapses back against it. "Yup,  _really_ need to start locking this thing."

 

* * *

 

Eventually, for the first time in what feels like centuries, Laura manages to restore order in her dorm room. No more clothes on the floor, no more half-drunk mugs, no more unidentifiable messes on every available surface. It is a clean even Perry would approve of, one she's been summarily denied since her new roommate stormed into her life two months ago, all bad attitude and even worse hygiene standards. 

Considering the less than salvageable state of their shared wardrobe, Laura's had to resort to folding and depositing their clothes in cardboard boxes (taken from many of her floormates, who, after half a year, still hadn't deigned to throw away their move-in boxes). Of course, putting away Carmilla's involved liberal use of kitchen tongs and more 'tossing' than 'folding', but still. The accomplishment she feels in the face of their new, orderly dorm room can't be taken away! For the first time in months, she's overthrown the seemingly sentient filth that her roommate exudes.

It's been, she glances at the clock, almost twelve hours since Carmilla left.

It's also been almost five hours since LaFontaine disappeared to the lab.

In that time, Laura's managed a quick power nap, a shower, a cleaning spree for the ages, and, most importantly, a healthy does of  _snooping_.

Despite living together for months now, Laura doesn't really know much about Carmilla. And it's not like she's ever gone out of her way to dig through her roommate's stuff, that, like, Bad Roommate Manners 101. To be fair, Laura's been too busy trying to keep her big, furry secret, trying to pass her classes, and trying to survive the abject filth of Carmilla's day-to-day living standards, so she hasn't really had the time to do the whole 'prying' thing (not to mention, Carmilla's not really approachable; she's as likely to bite her head off as she is just to roll her eyes). 

Still, despite digging through Carmilla's clothing, her bookshelf, the cupboards and even the fridge: nothing. Whatever evidence Laura's looking for—and she really was banking on something obvious, like a 'succubus for life' bumper sticker—she doesn't find it. It's annoying, too, because she's certain there has to be something. Carmilla's mysterious and secretive, yes, but even  _she_ has to have something incriminatinghidden around here. But zip, zilch, nada. And, unlike herself, Carmilla doesn't even have any potion-bottles hidden in her backpack to recycle (Laura checked, there was nothing; Carmilla doesn't really seem like the recycling type anyway—she's more fond of fire, as Laura found out, waking up to a garbage-can fire in the middle of the night once). 

After all the hours spent, minus the brief hour-long power nap she'd desperately needed, it's more than a little frustrating. It wasn't like she really expected to find anything, but, as someone infinitely more bitter than her had once said (an art student by the Lustig building, actually): "dreams are free." It's disheartening, though. Why can't all supernatural beings just carry around identification cards? It'd make this a lot easier. She'd have to check in with the Alchemy Club, or maybe some of the weird kids who hung out by the Robespierre building, chanting—if anybody knew about anything supernatural, it was someone in those groups.

Hands on her hips, Laura stares at the tidy, empty room.

She's still not sure exactly when, or even  _if,_ Carmilla intends on coming back. All things considered, the 'almost-murdered-Danny' and the 'got-slightly-impaled' thing sort of seems like an obstacle, and the way she'd left doesn't really seem to imply that she's not coming back anytime soon. Carmilla's always been prone to disappearing for hours, sometimes days, so it's not farfetched to imagine her just…not coming back. The thought is oddly disturbing.

It's strange, but Laura feels almost  _guilty_ about it, even though whatever happened between Carmilla and Danny wasn't her fault.

The way Carmilla had looked at her though, the hope in her eyes when she'd stuck up for her, and the sudden, stony shift when she'd suggested what Carmilla could have done…

"Ugh," Laura kicks one of her roommate's discarded boots—ones she's tripped over too many times to count—with a huff. "Darn it, Carmilla."

The boot tumbles end-over-end, disappears beneath Carmilla's bed, and hits something with a hollow  _thunk_.

Eyebrows drawn, curious, Laura crouches down until she can peer beneath the edge of the bed frame. 

"Whoa."

Between a mess of shoes, textbooks and all manner of trash—which, really, they have a garbage can in their room, she could at least use it—is something far more promising. There, at the very back, nestled against the wall far out of reach. A loose floorboard, left slightly ajar, knocked wider by the impromptu boot assault. So, points to Laura: she's discovered her roommate's secret hiding spot. 

Laura hazards a glance towards the door, biting her lip.

It's a movie cliche, a total invasion of privacy, and not to mention an all-around bad roommate move, but…well, not even Laura can be a good roommate  _all_ the time, and journalists do what they must to get their scoop.

Well, what's she got to lose?

(Besides her life, obviously, to a pissed-off roommate.)

Decisive, she stands, dragging the bed away from the wall. It lets loose a torrent of trash and even  _more_ dirty clothes, but Laura hardly cares, clambering over the covers of Carmilla's bed until she can reach the floor on the other side—covered, of course, in all manner of dust, dirt and hair. Hooking her fingers around the floorboard, she lifts, dragging it free.

There, in the cavity beneath her floor, is a shoebox.

Laura's eyes sharpen with interest, and she picks it up carefully, half-expecting a furious roommate to appear or some sort of nasty spell to activate, but…nothing.

She sits back on the covers, leans against Carmilla's pillow, and opens the lid.

"Ack!" Laura jumps, wide eyed, the contents spilling all over the bed. She scrambles away from it, trips half off the bed, and just about breaks her neck on the frame. But then she pops back up, staring, unblinking, at the new revelation. "Oh my god! Is that—? It _is_! Holy crab cakes…"

 

* * *

 

By the time LaFontaine returns, knocking on the door, Laura's still sitting numb with shock. It takes a moment to pull herself from her bed, but she does, opening the door with wide eyes, to LaFontaine's concerned face, their arms holding a few pieces of paper.

"I got your text, you said you—"

Laura pulls LaFontaine through the door, pale-faced. "I found something."

"What did you…"

Their words die in their throat, as Laura retreats to the bed, picks up the shoebox. 

She takes off the lid with a shaky hand, and holds up the contents.

Blood bags, five of them.

LaFontaine blinks, once, twice.

"Well, that explains the mix of O Positive and AB."

Laura just stares, wordless, at LaFontaine. "So, either she's just hiding a cheery collection of human blood beneath her bed to perform some sort of evil ritual, or Carmilla's a—"

"Vampire," LaFontaine confirms, shrugging. "She's totally a vampire. Honestly, the whole 'black, leather and brooding' thing was kind of a dead giveaway, and her German is like this really weird, ancient dialect, but the blood under the bed and the tests don't like, so—yeah, vampire."

"A vampire. My roommate is a vampire. I'm a werewolf, and my roommate is a vampire, who very recently tried to kill my friend. I'm living in a soap opera," Laura looks at the ceiling with wide, sightless eyes. "This is it. This is my life now."

LaFontaine pats her on the shoulder, considering the results in their hands. "I guess I don't need to show you the test results, then."

A moment of silence passes, as they inspect the blood bags, and Laura reconsiders everything she's done up to this point.

("Honestly, why did I pick Silas?" Laura asks. "This place isn't normal."

"Nobody here's normal."

"Shh," Laura waves them off. "Let me have my crisis."

LaFontaine grins. "Ah, freshmen.")

After a while, though, LaFontaine can't hold it in anymore. "You know, you're kind of the worst werewolf ever."

"That's offensive," Laura frowns.

LaF shrugs. "I'm just saying, Canadian Werewolf on Campus. Don't you have some sort of sixth-sense? Some sort of weird, werewolf precognition that tells you 'hello, your roommate of two months is a  _vampire,_ your mortal enemy.' It's pretty much, like, Intro to Lycanthropy, Laura."

"I'm new at this! Forgive me for not being up to date on whatever blood feuds are waging in the supernatural community!" Laura interjects, throwing up her arms. "I knew she wasn't  _normal_ , my supernatural radar has been pinging like crazy, and she does smell weird…but I had no idea about—" Laura picks up a blood bag, flaps it at LaFontaine, "— _this_."

LaFontaine blinks.

Another long, awkward moment of silence passes.

Laura swiftly drops the blood, cradles her face in her hands. "What do I do with this information?"

"Invest in holy water? Carve some stakes?"

"I don't want to  _kill_ her," Laura retorts, swiftly shooting the idea down. "I mean, sure, she's annoying and messy and did almost kill Danny the other night, but…I don't think she's evil."

They shrug. "Well, the 'didn't attempt to kill  _you,_ despite being thrown and impaled' thing does earn some serious points in the 'not evil' column."

"I'm pretty sure attacking Danny puts us back at zero, though. Or, honestly, negative points."

LaF hums, considering. "Well, there's only one thing to do."

"Change the locks?" Laura proposes. "String garlic around my neck at night? Ask around the Alchemy club for 'Vamp Away'?"

They grin. "More sleuthing."

Laura sighs. "Where do we start?"

"First order of business: whose blood is that and where's she getting it," LaF dictates. "I'll ask around, check with the science kids. I have a friend who volunteers at the campus hospital—"

"—which, I'm now realizing is a very  _strange_ thing to have on a university campus."

They nod. "Meanwhile, your mission, should you choose to accept it is: research."

"Research?"

"Vampires—we should probably read up on them."

"Right, I guess I can poke around the library, or talk to some people I know," Laura agrees, nodding slowly. "It'd be nice to know what works to fend them off. You know, just in case."

LaFontaine grins. "Maybe try and avoid the skinwalkers."

"I should  _never_ have told you about that."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So, I have a job interview tomorrow (my roommate's moving out, and I have to suddenly cover an extra $50+ of rent, hence a frantic job search), assignments to do, and a class schedule to keep. If I do get the job and some decent hours, I'm not sure how spaced out updates will be, but between writing this and my other fic, they'll definitely slow down. That being said, I'll still try to update it when I can, they just won't be every week.


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